Penguin Play

Shaylin had her school Christmas program this week. It was a musical called “How the Penguins Saved Christmas”. Shay was a penguin, and she was adorable. Not only did she know every word to every song, she knew (and mouthed) everyone else’s songs and lines.

After the performance, she said, “I am so proud of myself. I wish that we could do that play over and over again!”

School Pictures

I didn't really want to order school pictures this year. I had already had the kid's pictures taken, so I told them that we were only buying the cheapest, smallest school pictures package.

So they begged me to let them choose their own background. I figured, what the heck. Skyler also had me write and sign a note for the photographer saying, “Skyler has my permission to smile anyway he wants in his picture.” Here are the end results. Sky and Shay couldn’t be happier.

My Sawyer

Sawyer is getting cuter and cuter every day. That kid has the funnest personality. Here are some of his current adorable quirks.

1. He insists on wearing his underwear backwards so that he can see the picture of whatever cartoon character is on his undies.

2. He makes his bed, cleans his room and gets himself dressed every morning WITHOUT BEING ASKED. Could he teach that to his older siblings?

3. He is a sugar addict. He loves snack food. I told him that he always has to eat his “good food” before snacks. He told me, “I don’t like good food. I like GREAT food.”

4. He always stays on task. He always remembers what he is doing and finishes the job. A hurricane could interrupt him, and he would still remember that he was picking up the toy room. Amazing.

5. He is fascinated by Black people. Whenever we see someone who is African American in public, Sawyer starts yelling, “Look Dad, he is Black like me! No Dad, you didn’t look! See? He is Black!”

6. Remember how Sawyer saw “Santa” at church last week? This week, we saw him swimming laps at the rec center. Now Sawyer tells everyone, “I saw Santa at the pool, and he was almost naked.” (I guess because he had on a swimming suit instead of his Santa suit.) I think Sawyer is going to have a really warped image of Santa Clause.

7. Every time Sawyer runs past me (he never walks), he kisses me. My arms, legs and cheeks get hundreds of kisses every day.

Man, I love that sweet boy!

The Annual Cookie Decorating

Macey is really enjoying all of the Christmas fun this year. She gets excited by every light, every wrapped gift and every carol. This week, we decorated Christmas cookies, and she loved it. She just ate the cookies and dumped the sprinkles in her mouth, but she loved it.

Tagged

To all of you who have tagged me before. I am sorry. I just think that I am too boring to write about.

But my brother, Cody, tagged me and this one I thought I could handle. Here are five things about me that very few people know.

1. I love sharp pencils. I keep an electric pencil sharpener hidden in my pantry, so that my pencils are always pointy.

2. If I could have any super power, it would be telekinesis. I hate standing up and getting things, after I sit down.

3. I would rather clean than cook.

4. To this day, I still have to check under my bed every night to make sure that nothing scary is hiding under there. ( Thank you, Cody.)

5. This is what my hair looked like in high school.



Okay, now I tag Camie St. John, Mary Ann Vreeken, Nichole Smith, Jacque Cook and Mindy Houghton. This should be good.

Nativity

Our church Christmas party was on Friday, and the primary kids acted out The Nativity. Skyler was Joseph and Shaylin was Mary. They were so cute. They both took their roles very seriously. They even practiced, in front of the mirror, smiling angelically down at Baby Jesus.

They did great. They only got in one quiet little tiff during the production during which Mary may have hit Joseph with the Baby Jesus doll – it was hard to tell.

Meeting Santa

Santa was at the church party as well. The kids loved sitting on his lap.




Sawyer was a little nervous, but he warmed up when Santa gave him a bag of candy.



Macey thought he was great!



Today in church, Sawyer saw this sweet man without his Santa costume. (The beard is real.) Sawyer yelled across the room, "Mommy, look Santa came to church! He came to learn about Jesus!"

Preschool Program

Today (Sunday) Sawyer had his preschool program. Sawyer was so excited and proud to have all of us come. All week he has been telling us what songs he was going to sing and that we would need to be very quiet during his program.

He goes to a Methodist preschool, so his program was during their Sunday service. Unfortunately, when the time came for Sawyer to go up on stage and sing. He got terrified. I know that he wanted to sing, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk up there.

We finally convinced him to go up with Shaylin. So Shay sat by him during the whole program. (She is so sweet!) Sawyer would not sing though. He just sat there. At one point all of the kids got carrot noses and sang about a snowman. Instead of singing, Sawyer ate his carrot.

The last song they sang was “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. Sawyer chomped on his carrot through the whole thing, and then at the very end, he smiled and sang, “And a happy new year!” Then it was over.

Ironically, all afternoon he has been walking around the house singing his songs at the TOP of his lungs and telling us how well he did at his program.


This is the best picture that we could get because it was so dark. He is still so cute.

Skyler at Home

Today, Skyler stayed home from church because now HE is sick. I had to speak, and Jason had to sing in the choir, so we just gave him our cell phone number and told him to call if he needed anything.

While I was speaking (and Jason had Macey out in the hall), Skyler called NINE times. Skyler’s messages were hilarious:

1. Hi. I was just wondering what is taking you guys so long?
2. It has been one hour. When are you coming home?
3. Hello. It has been an hour and five minutes. I am getting really bored.
4. Hi. I just heard a noise and it really freaked me out. I know that you would just tell me to pray, so I will.
5. Okay, I prayed and I am still freaked out.
6. Hi. The noise was Chulo. Can I eat the cream puffs in the freezer?
7. When are you coming home? I am starving!
8. I think I heard the garage door opening. It that you? I’m going to go check.
9. Dad is home. I’m sorry that I called you so much. Was your phone set on vibrate? Oh man, I hope so. Alright, bye.

Slider

Macey had a big week. There are a lot of important “firsts” in a baby’s life – first tooth, first word, first step, etc. Our kids haven’t cared about any of those with Macey. They have all just been anxiously awaiting the day that Macey would go down our slide. (We have a big tube slide going from our main floor into our basement toy room.)

This week, while I was cleaning upstairs, I heard the sound of someone sliding down the slide. I ran down to the toy room and there was Macey sitting at the bottom of the slide. She looked a little disheveled, but she smiled and threw her hands up and yelled, “I did it!” It was so cute!

Now we can’t keep her off of it.

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas

Sick (and by sick, I mean gross)

Well, we are doing alright here. Jason got bronchitis, so he has been miserable all week. He coughs so loud that you can probably hear him in space, so I have also been miserable all week.

Macey is getting better, but slowly. TWICE, this week, I went to get her out of her crib and found her playing with her huge, green boogers like they were silly putty. She just looked up at me, smiling, and said, "Eewww, kuh-kuh." Deeeeestgusting!

I think that everyone is finally getting better though.

Christmas Miracle

On Saturday afternoon, we had Jason’s office party. Skyler feels like he had a very spiritual experience there that he would like to share with you. Here it is, in his own words:

“Saturday was a hard day. Well, first of all, I was at a super fun swimming birthday party on Saturday, but my mom came and picked me up early to take me to my dad's office party. I had to miss the pizza and the cake. Second, she made me dress up in church clothes for the office party. Third, I knew that the party was going to be boring, and she wouldn’t let me take my ipod. Fourth, when we got to the party, it was pouring rain outside, and I had to spend like nineteen minutes (three) in the rain trying to get our van door to close. It was jammed on a sippy cup. So when the party started, I was wet, and cold, and sad, and bored.

My mom told me that sacrificing for other people is hard but it brings blessings. I knew that she was right, but I didn’t know HOW right. Because at that party, my dad’s employees gave him a big bag with movies and candy and a Wii game called NBA Live 08 in it. It is probably the funnest game ever made.

So, I learned that God really does bless me when I do nice things for other people.”

Isn’t he a spiritual giant?

Parade of Lights

On Saturday night, we went to the Parade of Light on Main Street here. I told the kids that it would be really cold, so we all needed to put on lots of layers. Holy crap. I think the kids put on every article of clothing that they own. They were so big and padded that they could hardly walk. They were totally sweating in the car on the way there. It was so funny.

We had a great time watching the parade, but Skyler and Shaylin kept complaining to us that they were too hot. Everyone around us looked at them like they were nuts.